The winners of the 2025 National Book Awards were announced November 19 at the 76th National Book Awards Ceremony held in New York City. During the ceremony, two lifetime achievement awards were also presented: George Saunders was recognized with the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and Roxane Gay received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Following are this year’s winners:

About The National Book Awards

The National Book Awards were established in 1950 to celebrate the best writing in the United States. Since 1989, the Awards have been overseen by the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to celebrate the best literature published in the United States, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in our culture. Although other categories have been recognized in the past, the Awards currently honors the best Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature published each year.

A panel of judges selects a Longlist of ten titles per category, which is then narrowed to five Finalists, and a Winner is announced at the Awards Ceremony in the fall. Each Finalist receives a prize of $1,000, a medal, and a Judges’ citation. Winners receive $10,000 and a bronze sculpture.

Aspen Words has announced the 2026 longlist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, a $35,000 annual award for a work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue.

The following 15 works are in contention for this award:

• “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)” by Rabih Alameddine (Grove Press)
• “King of Ashes” by S.A. Cosby (Flatiron Books)
• “The Wilderness” by Angela Flournoy (Mariner Books)
• “Culpability” by Bruce Holsinger (Spiegel & Grau)
• “Intemperance: A Novel” by Sonora Jha (HarperVia)
• “The River Is Waiting” by Wally Lamb (Simon and Schuster; Marysue Rucci Books)
• “Ring: A Novel” by Michelle Lerner (Bancroft Press)
• “A Family Matter” by Claire Lynch (Scribner)
• “Wild Dark Shore” by Charlotte McConaghy (Flatiron Books)
• “These Heathens: A Novel” by Mia McKenzie (Random House)
• “Happy Land” by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Berkley)
• “This Here Is Love” by Princess Joy L. Perry (W. W. Norton & Company)
• “Endling” by Maria Reva (Doubleday)
• “Behind the Waterline” by Kionna Walker LeMalle (Blair)
• “So Far Gone: A Novel” by Jess Walter (Harper)

About the Aspen Word Literary Prize

The $35,000 Aspen Words Literary Prize honors an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture. Open to authors of any nationality, the award is one of the largest literary prizes in the United States, and one of the few focused exclusively on socially engaged fiction. The prize’s past winners include Mohsin Hamid, Tayari Jones, Christy Lefteri, Louise Erdrich, Dawnie Walton, Jamil Jan Kochai, Isabella Hammad, and Tommy Orange.

The shortlist will be announced on March 11, 2026, and the winner will be revealed on April 23, 2026.

More information: www.aspenwords.org/longlist

Columbia University has announced the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes, awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board. The 2025 Pulitzer Prize winning books are:

About the Pulitzer Prizes

The Pulitzer Prizes were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the School of Journalism in 1912 and establish the Pulitzer Prizes, which were first awarded in 1917.

The 18-member Pulitzer Board is composed of leading journalists or news executives from media outlets across the U.S., as well as five academics or persons in the arts. The dean of Columbia’s journalism school and the administrator of the prizes are non-voting members. The chair rotates annually to the most senior member or members.